


Birthday Boys

by LadyNoLuck



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, JeanEren Week, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 07:13:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1257544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyNoLuck/pseuds/LadyNoLuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With their birthdays only about a week apart, Eren and Jean find themselves closer than ever before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Midnight Drink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to complete the family tradition for the first time in years, Eren stays up late, and Jean and alcohol decide to keep him company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for the first prompt, Flirting, of JeanEren Week!  
> Enjoy!

Eren felt himself begin to doze off again and shook his head, trying to rid himself of the sleepiness. Even though he was no longer at the barracks where everyone was up before the sun, everyone in the cottage still got up early to work on all the chores necessary to sustain the group. Most people collapsed in their beds around ten, but here was Eren, struggling to stay awake and watching the clock with half-closed eyes.

It has been a tradition since he was little, before even meeting Mikasa, to stay up with his mother and watch the clock get closer and closer to midnight. He never was able to stay up that late when it was just his mother and him. After Mikasa came to live with them, he was able to do it with immense effort, and his mother and Mikasa gave him their congratulations in the form of chaste kisses on his forehead. Mikasa was embarrassed afterward, explaining that his mother convinced her to do it. Laughing, he kissed her forehead in thanks, and then he did the same for his mother. They all fell asleep after, leaving the celebration for later.

After his mother’s death and their relocation, he never had a clock available, and the days of fieldwork blended into each other until months and days meant nothing to them. There were only daytime, nighttime, and the seasons. They never had the resources to celebrate anything anyway.

Once Eren, Mikasa, and Armin joined the military school, they began to celebrate the certain days again. All the trainees pitched in because, with the seriousness of their futures, they were all eager for celebrations. Rations were saved and then eaten at the small feasts they would have. Shadis would even drop by with some meat, pretending it was leftover meat.

Jean, that idiot, would drink too much at every single one where someone smuggled in some alcohol. Eren stayed sober. The two were always a big show at the parties with the drunk Jean and sober Eren arguing over stupid things. Not that that was unusual, but the addition of alcohol brought the stupidity and hilarity of their fights to new heights.

Still, Eren would stay up by himself the night before. Mikasa was in the female barracks, so there was no way they could do the family tradition anymore. Without anyone to help him stay up, he fell asleep before the hands reached midnight.

This year, this night, he was going to do it.

He was doing it alone again because Mikasa was too focused on the mission to realize the date.

Now, his consciousness was slipping.

“Stupid!” he scolded himself, quietly, but apparently not quiet enough.

A couple of light knocks brought his attention to the door, and he called, “What is it?”

The door opened. “I should be the one saying that. What is it, Eren?”

“Jean, why are you up this late?” Eren said as he sat up in bed.

Jean looked down the hall both ways before entering the room and closing the door behind him. He raised his hand, which was holding a jug by the neck, and shook the bottle, noisily splashing the liquid inside around. “Late night drink, Jaeger. Why are you shouting stuff in the middle of the night?”

“I was not shouting!” Eren shot back.

“You are now!” Jean chuckled.

The reality of the situation dawned on Eren with that laugh. “Are you drunk?”

“A bit,” he answered, using his free hand to demonstrate the amount of his drunkenness with the closeness of his thumb and index finger, which were millimeters apart.

Eren scoffed, scooting over to give Jean a place to sit. The other boy tended to get clumsy on his feet with a drink in him.

With swaying steps, Jean came to the bed and bounced into the spot next to him, pulling the sheet over his lap when he was situated. He appreciatively offered Eren a drink, pressing the lip of the jug to his chin, but Eren pushed it away.

“So, why are you up, Eren?”

Eren weighed the pros and cons of telling him the truth and decided to just tell him, “I wanted to stay up for once.” Drunk Jean would usually accept that type of answer.

“I got ya.” And he did.

“Jean, you probably shouldn’t drink,” Eren yawned. “We are all currently walking a thin line.”

Jean pouted dramatically. “But I needed some celebrating.” He took a swig of the liquid.

“We are being hunted down like game, and you think there is something to celebrate?” Eren spat back.

“Well, we are all alive, right?” Jean sipped lightly from the jug. “I was on the verge of death not long ago, and you have been banging on death’s door since you joined the Recon Corps. It’s probably a miracle that anyone here is alive at all.”

Eren bumped his shoulder into Jean’s. “For someone celebrating, you only have morbid things on your mind.”

“Well, how ‘bout this….” he smiled widely at Eren, “I am sharing a bed with the strongest guy around.”

“That’s Levi, you smartass.”

“But I doubt I would be able to celebrate living after trying that,” Jean pointed out with a tip of his jug, “Hard to drink when you are in pieces.”

“Excellent argument,” Eren agreed.

“Anyways, this is better,” the drunk explained as he pushed all his weight into the titan shifter’s side, which did not move under the force, so Jean just settled with resting his head on the side of Eren’s.

“I forgot that you get so touchy-feely when you are drunk.”

“You also say I flirt with anything with two legs…”

“But mainly Mikasa,” they said in unison.

Both of them laughed, and, once again, Jean offered Eren the jug. After a moment of thought, he accepted it and tasted a single drop. His face crinkled, and Jean snorted, poking the corner of his forcefully pursed lips with a cold finger.

“You get used to it,” the idiot laughed, taking the jug from Eren to throw back a gulp, before looking over Eren’s face. “Now that I look at you, Eren, you aren’t that bad-looking.”

“Says the drunk horse.”

“Nah, I always thought so,” he stopped leaning on Eren and combing a hand through his hair, “I mean I thought you were Mikasa’s boyfriend before I knew you were siblings, so I thought you were good-looking enough to be considered a rival, if you get what I mean.”

“I guess so.” Eren stole the jug from him, and, after a pause of hesitation, he took a large swig, swallowing it thickly and glancing at the clock. Not much longer. “Thanks, Jean.”

“This is the part where you tell me I am mildly attractive, too.”

“Why should I give your ego a boost like that?”

“Because I like hearing about my good looks every now and then.”

Eren snickered, “Yeah, yeah, but you are going to have to work for it.”

“Not physical labor, right?” Jean smirked.

“In your dreams,” the titan shifter shot back, as he tilted the jug up for another drink.

“Probably.”

Eren choked on the liquid, the fruity undertones sticking to the back of his tongue and throat. “I didn’t want to know that.”

“It’s a joke,” Jean chuckled at his misfortune, taking the alcohol back, “Well, as far as, I know.”

“What does that even mean?” Eren coughed out.

“I don’t remember my dreams when I get drunk, and I always sent my drinking nights fighting with you, so who knows where the alcohol would take my mind?”

“Damn, do you think I am _that_ attractive?”

“Honestly?”

Eren nodded.

“Kinda.”

Jean took a sip.

“Well, then.” Eren looked away and rested his head back against the wall.

“Earlier, I wasn’t really clear. Frankly, just sitting here with you like this _is_ a celebration on its own for me.”

Turning his head back toward Jean, Eren watched the drunk boy scratch at the side of his neck.

“We always argued in military school and had a grand time getting on each other’s nerves during celebrations, but it was fun, and nothing was complicated. Then, you pop out of a titan, and everything goes to hell. Nothing is black and white anymore. There is a gray area for everything.

“I thought for the longest time and on many different occasions that I would never see that stupid, determined face of yours ever again. Your existence was drowned in that gray area to the point I decided to stake my life to protect you and your hope for humanity.”

“Jean…”

“Somewhere along the line, I realized that…” he tipped the jug toward Eren and grinned, “I care about you. So, sitting here, sharing a bed with you, so to speak, is a big deal for me.” He brought the jug back to his lips and whispered over the lip, “It just helps that you are a gorgeous guy.”

Eren snatched the jug from him, “You smooth talker.” He drank three swallows of the alcohol.

“Did your heart skip a beat?” the idiot laughed.

“You wish.”

“Maybe sometimes,” Jean replied, taking back the jug and pulling back the covers.

“Oh, shut it, horseface.”

He stumbled over to the door, but then he almost literally bent over backwards to look at something, before continuing to the door and opening it.

He turned back toward Eren and raised the jug, but, instead of shaking it as he had earlier, he kissed the curved lip and smiled.

“Happy Birthday, Eren.”

After the door shut, Eren pressed his fingers over his lips and saw the hands of the clock had passed midnight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have the time, nor skills, to do all of JeanEren Week within the actual week, so I am spreading it out for a month or so, one chapter a week (2 over spring break week), until Jean's birthday on April 7th. Please bear with me until then!  
> I don't usually write for these angry boyfriends, but I had a lot of fun writing this.  
> Please comment and tell me what you thought!  
> Thank you for reading!  
> Next up is Pranking!


	2. Neigh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the morning of his birthday, Eren thinks about Jean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for the second prompt, Pranking, of JeanEren Week!  
> Enjoy!

On the morning of Eren’s birthday, Jean was missing from the breakfast table. No one knew where he was. They each had their own rooms in the cottage because of its size, so no one had seen him. Yet, no one felt the need to check his room. If Levi came back from his perimeter check and Jean still was not there, then the punishment that followed would definitely be Jean’s own fault. None of them wanted to get involved.

Eren, who had completed all the prep for breakfast he was allowed to do, was sitting at the table in his spot at a corner. He and Jean usually were not asked to help much in food preparation anymore, not because they were not competent at cooking, but because they would start competing. Who could make the most pancakes in five minutes? Who could carve all the potatoes the fastest? Simple competitions like that became common in the cottage kitchen, but Levi punished them severely for a week for wasting their limited resources. “This is a life-or-death situation, and you are throwing away valuable rations that Erwin snuck out to us, all for your idiotic shit-throwing fests,” Levi had growled at them.

They had spent the week having to catch three animals a day for each meal without 3D maneuver gear, in addition to their already rigorous chore lists. The first few days were spent up all night in the woods with the boys switching off to take naps under the stars, sitting back to back to keep warm in the cold night air. One night, their breaths began to appear, and their fingers were numbing, but they needed one more animal. It was Eren’s turn to watch, and Jean’s turn to sleep, but, too cold to sleep, Jean had opted out of his nap to help Eren by scoping the surroundings.

Even with his elevated body temperature, Eren could not feel his fingertips or the bow and arrow in his hands. His lack of sleep was taking a toll on his body. He had given Jean more and longer naps the prior nights, thinking that his titan shifting ability might help him handle the sleep deprivation, which it did not. Small tremors shook his numbed limbs with an occasional facial twitch. He needed sleep and warmth, but they needed this last animal.

Eventually, Jean noticed the trembles and leaned his head back onto Eren’s shoulder, “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Eren answered quickly, before a tremor could stutter his words.

The branch they were on moved as Jean turned his body toward Eren’s back. Eren did not move, nor looked toward Jean.

“Give me your hand,” the other boy ordered.

“Why?”

“Just give it here.” Jean placed a hand in Eren’s field of vision.

Eren did not move an inch and offered up no excuse, so Jean took the fist that held an arrow and closed his hand around Eren’s. Jean’s hands were no bigger than Eren’s, his fingers actually a bit skinnier, but with those slender fingers wrapped around his fist, he felt like Jean’s hand was engulfing his.

“Damn, Eren, you are going to lose your fingers like this! Why aren’t you wearing your gloves?” The hand squeezed his, the thumb rubbing warmly into his frozen flesh.

“I can’t hold the bow and arrow with gloves on. The woolen bits get in the way.”

Jean dropped his hand, and the branched shifted again. Eren looked back this time to see that the other boy had backed up into the trunk, his hand waving Eren over. “Come over here,” Jean said uncertainly.

Reluctant to follow any orders from Jean, Eren did not do as he asked until the other purposefully _neighed_ at him. He quickly covered his mouth. If he laughed, he could guarantee that they would not get all three animals tonight. Before Jean could do it again, he turned around and scooted carefully to the horse-faced bastard, who had cracked a triumphant grin.

“What?” Eren shivered, as their knees knocked.

“Face back that way,” he instructed with a tip of his chin.

Confused, but curious, Eren followed the directive. Once looking out toward the forest, he asked, “Now what?”

“Don’t freak out.”

He opened his mouth to ask what that meant, but then two hands grabbed his hips and pulled him back against Jean. He almost squeaked in surprise, but Jean already had a hand on his mouth before he could scare all the animals in the vicinity. Eren tried to escape the grip, but Jean kept him in place.

“Calm down, Jaeger. I am just helping you keep warm. You are warmer now, right?”

Eren stopped fighting the embrace. Suddenly, he was aware of the warmth on his back. The sides of his upper thighs were warmed a bit by Jean’s inner thighs, which had risen up unconsciously to help keep him in place when he was fighting the grip. The hands on his hips had become warm arms crossing over his waist during his flailing. Jean’s breath warmed the back of his neck.

“I guess so.”

“How were you supposed to even aim, shivering like you were?” Jean questioned, resting his forehead on the back of Eren’s head.

The titan shifter could not stop himself from shivering once again, but this time at the tickle of the other boy’s breath on his neck and not the cold. “I would have managed.”

“Bullshit,” he exhaled into Eren’s skin, which caused Eren to tremble. “What’s wrong now?”

Eren bowed forward away from the blows of warm air. His neck felt like it was on fire, and his eyesight was going dizzy. “Your breath…” he murmured into Jean’s arms around his torso.

“What? What about my breath? Does it smell or something?” He removed an arm from Eren’s waist to test his breath in his hand. “It doesn’t smell bad. What’s the issue?”

When the boy did not respond, he leaned forward and blew at Eren’s exposed neck.

Eren flinched, “Don’t do that!”

“Are you ticklish?” Jean chuckled.

“No!” he shot back quietly.

“Whatever. It’s fine. Sit up, and I’ll rest my head on your shoulder, so I don’t breathe on your neck, okay?”

Hesitantly, Eren sat back up, and Jean did what he said he would and rested his chin on top of his shoulder.

“This okay?”

“Yeah,” Eren replied.

Half an hour went by in this new position, the occasional call of a nocturnal bird being the only sound beyond the sound of the boy’s close proximity, their breathing and the thumping of two different hearts. Eren was slowly being lulled into the sleep he had been neglecting, but he fought against it. Just one more animal and they could go sleep by a fire inside the cottage.

Eren’s eyes began to droop once more, when Jean bumped his head into Eren’s.

“There.”

Tiredness delaying his comprehension, it took him a few moments to grasp the meaning of ‘there.’ As soon as he did, he languidly scoped the forest floor until he spotted the lowered head of a doe. He raised the bow, but couldn’t find the energy to position the arrow. Eren swayed forward.

Jean slid his hands up to keep Eren up. “Eren?”

“I can’t…” he mumbled.

“Goddamnit, Eren. How much sleep have you got these last few nights?”

“Two hours maybe…”

“You idiot, just…” Jean pulled Eren back against him. “Just give me your hands.”

The exhausted boy leaned back into the other’s chest, head resting on the side of Jean’s, and relinquished control of his hands into Jean’s warmer ones.

Eren fell to sleep watching Jean aim the bow in his hand and position the arrow in his other hand. With his ear on the boy’s jugular, he let the beating of Jean’s heart be his lullaby.

Now, at the table, Eren stared at Jean’s empty spot across from him. He recalled waking up in his bed to everyone’s praise for taking down a doe in one shot. Even Levi stood in the corner of his bedroom to offer a “Decent job for a shitty brat.” He searched the room for Jean and found him standing in the doorway. When Eren opened his mouth to tell the group the truth, Jean shook his head at him and put a finger to his lips, before mouthing, “ _Take it, you suicidal bastard_.” Jean left soon after, yawning loudly and cracking his neck.

The empty chair seemed to egg him on, and Eren got up from his seat with only one destination in mind.

Before he knew it, he was at Jean’s door. Eren rose his hand to knock, but on a sudden impulse, he simply turned the knob and cracked open the door. The room was dark with the window facing away from the rising sun, but the bookshelves that covered every wall and the form on the bed could easily be seen. He shut the door behind him and approached the bed. The jug from last night sat on a shelf behind the low headboard, so Eren picked it up and shook. “Empty,” he commented to himself at the absence of sloshing liquid.

After returning the jug to the shelf, he looked down at Jean, who had an odd expression on his face.

“One of those drunk dreams of yours, huh?” Eren smirked. “What should I do…” He looked around the shelves for something, anything really, when he noticed a brush and full inkwell sitting atop an aged book on the shelf next to the jug.

He leaned carefully over Jean to reach the brush and ink. Once he grabbed the two, he moved to stand again when a warm puff of air on his throat sent a shiver down his spine. He shot up, and his eyes went straight to Jean. The boy was still sleeping, but his breathing was a bit harder.

Before his chance to act was gone, Eren quickly dripped the brush in the ink, mindful to let the excess drip off first. He thought hastily of what he should do, when the idea came to him as if it had been the obvious choice this whole time.

With a steady hand, he spelled “ _NEIGH_ ” out on Jean’s forehead.

He laughed soundlessly at his handiwork, stretching back over Jean to return the items.

This time, as he was about to stand straight up again, it was not a breath on his neck that made him stop.

“Eren…”

His whole body heated as Eren froze in place. He slowly rose just enough to look at Jean’s face that was mostly relaxed in sleep, but his brow was creased, his cheeks awash in scarlet. Jean’s parted lips moved with the little pants that escaped his mouth. Eren breathed softly on the boy’s neck, which coaxed a whine out of him. The sound pulled Eren’s attention back to Jean’s lips.

Eren could not help, but press his own lips to them for a few moments and feel the moist softness of Jean's lips, only to stumble backward, realizing what he had done.

He ran to the door, flinging it open and then slamming it behind him. The sound woke up Jean, who cried, “What is going on?!” in surprise.

On the other side of the door, listening to Jean shift in bed and groan, Eren cupped his hands over his mouth, not moving until he heard, “That dream again…”

He ran down the stairs and toward the door, which opened as Levi entered. He passed him and went out through the open door.

Levi turned toward him and began, “Eren, breakfast is—”

“I am not hungry!” he yelled back through the cracks between his fingers.

_What did I just do?!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You kissed him. That's what. No drunk excuse for you though.  
> I ended up writing this until four a.m. on two different days because I am stupid, but Jean and Eren as love interests is such a new dynamic for me that I am having a lot of fun.  
> Please comment and tell me what you thought!  
> Thank you for reading!  
> Next up is Denial!


	3. Cleaning Windows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren deals with the sudden emotions, following him kissing Jean. His change in behavior doesn't go unnoticed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for the third prompt, Denial, of JeanEren Week!  
> Enjoy!

Eren rubbed down the window with a damp cloth, some excess water dripping down his wrist and into his sleeve. When he had finished the window, he pushed up his wet sleeve before dunking the cloth in to the pail at his feet and making his second pass over the panes. Noticing a bit of dirt was not coming off easily, he rubbed at it in circles. Eren decided to check the spot, and it was still there, but there was an unfocused blob behind it.

He took his attention from the spot, and two light brown eyes met his. Immediately, he pressed the cloth back over the dirt spot and the figure with two hands. Willing him to walk away, Eren pressed his forehead into his knuckles, and after a minute, he checked discreetly.

Jean was not out there anymore.

He sighed in relief and fell back on the bed in the room and slung a forearm over his eyes, the dripping cloth held tightly in the fist laid over his cheekbone. They have been avoiding each other for days now. After Jean saw his forehead in the mirror a couple of days ago, he had apparently run down the stairs and went to the table where everyone was eating already. He had slammed a fist into the table and growled, “You little bastard!”

But his desired “little bastard” was not at the table. Something he had failed to notice in his rage.

Only Levi was on that side of the table, and, due to Eren’s absence, Levi obviously assumed that Jean was calling him a “little bastard.” Mikasa had relayed a couple details about Jean being shoved by his neck into a wall and some other things like that, but long story short, Jean had a large bruise on his cheek and gets to do his chores plus Levi’s for five days. The fifth day was a bonus for being late to breakfast. Eren was surprised it was only that much, but Armin explained that the writing on his face was to stay, and he was not allowed to wash it off. The titan shifter laughed out loud at that bit of information.

He had then left Mikasa and Armin with the intention of apologizing to Jean. Once he had gotten to the horse stall barn Jean was working in, he poked his head in and saw him putting new hay into a stall. “NEIGH” was still on his forehead, but the ink was mixing with sweat and sliding down his face, following the straight bridge of his nose, the curve of his smile lines, and then his—Jean reached up with the back of his wrist and wiped the ink onto his cheek. The tip of his tongue came out, and he moistened his—Eren turned and headed for the forest, his hands involuntarily covering his mouth.

Suddenly, he felt a breath on his neck and swung around, backing into a tree, but no one was there. He slid down the bark, which prodded at his back, until he sat on the ground. Even though he had not run, his heart pulsed in his ears, and he felt like he could not get any air into his lungs. For a moment, he worried that he was shifting, but he soon realized it was not the same feeling.

It was a weird feeling. Pulling his knees to his chest, he placed his hands over his face and tucked his head between his chest and kneecaps. Eren felt naked, vulnerable. He just wanted to curl into himself and hide. What was wrong with him?

After his heart stopped racing, he had jumped up, realizing he had not started his chores. It was his turn to wash down the windows. They gathered enough dust to disgust Levi in a very short span of time, so Levi had started having Eren wash them down regularly. Since Levi specifically chose him for the job, he was going to get in huge trouble for not doing it. So he ran all the way back and filled a pail of water at the well, before heading inside to get to work.

Yesterday, he was told to redo cleaning the windows by Levi, who came down the stairs for dinner with a grimace on his face, which was directed at the dust-covered fingertip he held away from himself. He strode over to Eren, who was already seated, and grabbed the back of his shirt. Levi then pulled it up and vigorously wiped the dust off his finger and onto Eren’s shirt. Eren protested, but he was ignored. “Try harder, shitty brat,” Levi had said, and he went the kitchen to properly clean his hands and get his food. 

Today, Eren was cleaning the windows again. After the first couple, he realized just how bad a job he had done. He really cannot complain about Levi’s judgment, especially since it was one of the easier chores anyway. He almost enjoyed cleaning the windows actually.

However, Jean kept walking into his field of vision. He could see a lot from these windows, and Jean was always there in his view. The bastard had to walk back and forth from the stable to the well, the well to the stable, the stable to the shed, the shed to the stable. Then he had to take breaks sometimes, always sitting where Eren could watch him drink his water and wipe ink and sweat off his face. Eren usually went to another window on the other side of the house, until Jean was only in his sight momentarily again.

Water dripped onto his cheek, and once again he found himself staring up at the ceiling. Eren blinked a couple of times. _I dozed off_ , he slowly realized. Looking toward the window, it was luckily still light out. He had only slept for an hour at most.

After stretching his arms up toward the ceiling, he let them fall to his sides. His unoccupied hand brushed against the sheets, and he remembered he was on someone’s bed. _Whose room is this again?_

“You better not have just put that filthy rag on my clean bed, Eren.”

He sat up immediately at the voice, moving the wet cloth off the bed. He swiveled his head toward the sound of it, meeting the apathetic gaze instantly. “Sorry, Levi!”

The other man, who was sitting at the desk with the chair facing the bed, uncrossed his legs and arms, placing the heels of his palms on his knees. “About the rag, sleeping on my clean bed, or sleeping instead of doing your chores?”

“All of those, I guess,” Eren shrugged.

Levi stood up and went to the bed. He reached in his pocket and took out a handkerchief, which he gave to Eren. The titan shifter wiped his wet cheek and handed it back silently. Levi took it back, but stayed where he was. “You have seemed tired lately. You finish your meals quickly and leave food behind, and then you go straight to bed after dinner, but you still look like you are dead tired in the mornings. You feeling sick or something?”

Eren shook his head. He had been eating as quickly as he could, so he would not have to see Jean as much. His stomach kept flipping, so he had to leave his meals unfinished. Instead of relaxing and hanging out with his friends, he went right to his room, so he would not have to talk to Jean. As for the tiredness…

“I just can’t seem to get to sleep.”

Crossing his arms, Levi hummed, “Something’s on your mind then.”

Eren simply nodded.

“Is it about the mission?”

“No.” He instantly regretted saying that, thinking that Levi was sure to scold for contemplating anything but the mission at hand.

“Then what has you so distracted?”

Eren looked up at Levi with wide eyes.

The Corporal’s lips quirked at one corner as he took the damp cloth from Eren’s hand and tossed it into the pail. He sat down on his bed next to Eren, resting his back and head against the wall, after removing his shoes. “Did you think I would blow up at you for not focusing on the mission? You may be a monstrous weapon for humanity, but you are also a human. This mission is our top priority, but that doesn’t mean everything around us just stops. So tell me what is on your mind, so it doesn’t distract you later on.”

Eren took off his shoes and faced Levi, crossing his legs as he did. “For a guy who references shit whenever he can, you sure can sound intelligent sometimes.”

“If you ever want to take a shit again, brat, I’d start talking because if you don’t start doing what I asked, you will lose that ability.”

Unable to stop himself, Eren chuckled, “You can’t just add it in later.”

“Stop stalling. Do I need to repeat myself?”

“No!” the boy waved his hands, “Not at all… I just don’t know if I should tell you.”

Levi huffed, “I can handle it.”

Suddenly, Eren was aware that he had to actually say something now. He was definitely not going to talk about the deal with Jean, especially with Levi still pissed at him.

“I—uh, well,” Levi was still staring at him, “It’s, um, my neck.” _Nice save, Eren._

“Your neck? Is it all locked up or something?”

“N-no.” _Horrible save, Eren._

“Then what’s up?”

Eren had mixed feelings at this point. Should he actually tell him about what happens to him when his neck is stimulated somehow? Should he lie? No, Levi would be able to tell if he was being dishonest… So, there is only one choice.

“I recently figured out my neck may be hypersensitive, right around where a titan’s kill zone is.”

The man’s eyebrows rose at the information. “Has it been hurting there?”

“N-no, it is fine usually. Just… when it is touched or something…”

“So, it hurts when it is touched?”

“Not—not hurt,” Eren stammered out, reddening slightly.

“Eren, I am not going to play guessing games with you,” Levi said. However, Eren could not bring himself to say it. Levi leaned closer and began to say Eren’s name, but, suddenly, Eren squeaked and jumped off the bed. Surprised for a moment, the man took in the boy’s blush and small pants and immediately realized. “You get turned on?”

“It is weird, right?” Eren covered his neck with both of his hands. “The place that kills our enemies causes me to become like this.”

Levi took his time to choose his words. “Eren…” The boy flinched at the call. “It’s okay. Normal humans can get aroused by getting their necks messed with. It’s not weird at all.”

“No, it is definitely weird!” Eren lowered his head, remembering the night in the forest in Jean and the morning just a couple days ago in Jean’s room. It was weird to be like this with the horse-faced bastard. He is just this annoying guy, who sometimes makes him smile, an honest drunk, who thinks he is attractive, an asshole, who… he cannot stop thinking about.

Hands grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him to get him to look up. Eren met Levi’s gaze. “You never deny that you are a monster, so stop denying that you are also human. Eren, just because your titan powers made your neck sensitive like this doesn’t mean you getting affected by it isn’t normal. Hell, you are a teenager. If you didn’t have sexual reactions to some things, we’d be worried about your health.” The man let go of his shoulders and shook his head. “This whole reaction of yours is stupid, but if it has been bothering you so much that it is keeping you up at night, then we can figure out what to do. For today though, finish your chores, eat all of your food at dinner, stick around for a bit after and _engage_ with people, and then finally, get some sleep because you look like shit.” He turned from Eren and headed for the door, glancing back as he added, “Don’t go to sleep again until you finish the windows though.”

Eren watched him go, feeling a little better about everything. Levi was definitely not the most reassuring person in the cottage, but even though he did not tell Levi the entire issue he was having, his straightforward and honest response was enough to cool his head. Whereas Jean set him ablaze, Levi froze him in place, and that was what he needed.

Striding over to the pail, he snatched up the cloth and looked out the window. Jean was lying out on his back in the grass, face relaxed and toward the sky. Eren lazily rubbed at the dirt spot. Immediately, he found his eyes running down Jean’s nose and to his parted… lips.

_I probably…_

The dirt finally came off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late! I had a new class added to my schedule and a busy spring break, but here it is. Four more chapters to go!! Gosh, I don't know if I can do it, but I will do my best!  
> Also, I have the opportunity to write some smut in this, but I don't know if I should or not... Please tell me what you think! There is already going to be a borderline smutty scene, but nothing explicit. It is up to you guys!  
> Otherwise, please comment and tell me what you thought!  
> Thank you for reading!  
> Next up is the Free Space (what super creative prompt will I choose?!)!


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